What to Do When Your Teen Hates You

So, you’re the parent of a teenager. Those four little words that used warm a mother’s heart—I love you, Mommy—have now become four words guaranteed to ruin your day: Mom, I hate you!

Many parents find (just as their parents did before them) that the adorable children they’ve devoted their lives to—from babyhood to precocious toddler to curious adolescent—have seemingly turned on them overnight.

I agree with some of this article a lot. At the same time, I feel like a lot of parents of teenagers are missing something big: their impact on the kids themselves. I am a teen, and have had an extremely strained relationship with both of my parents during certain parts of my life.
With my dad, the problems stemmed from him letting me do whatever I wanted to. If I were to go deeper into this issue here, you’d know that it came from him not being in my life, and therefore feeling insecure about how to “be a parent” when I popped into it. Anyway, without him being there structurally, I did whatever I wanted (that meant alcohol, drugs, partying, sex, foul language, loud music, etc). I’m not saying that him not being there caused these things – I had had many extremely traumatic experiences before moving in with him – but his lack of involvement in my life, even when I was living with him, absolutely did not help. It would have been nice if he hadn’t tried to turn me against my mom, too. Working WITH your kid rather than against them is a big one. I want to mention – “structure” doesn’t mean forcing your kid to come home at 8. If my dad tried to enforce some sort of rules, I would have rebelled against them as best as I could (and gotten what I set out for). When a parent hasn’t been in a kid’s life, they need to warm up to the kid first, before parenting. Think of it from the kid’s point of view: a dad they haven’t seen in three years is NOT their dad. If my dad had asked me about my traumatic issues that occurred at my other house, I would have opened up to him about it and maybe we would have gotten along enough for structure to be possible. But we never talked with each other about deep things like that, so it never was.
With my mom, the problems went way back. She married an abusive man when I was 5 years old and finally left him when I was 10, after my sister and I had experienced years of traumatic abuse (sexual, physical and verbal). Her lack of action during this time played a huge role in our unsteady relationship. After he left, he disappeared from our daily life – never to be talked about again. She brought us to therapy, but never asked how we were feeling, if we needed anything, how she could help – hell, she didn’t even buy food, which led to eating disorders in both my sister and me. The trauma has followed us through the years – it’s been 6 – and still we’re blamed for our coping mechanisms (self-harm, eating disorders, depression, excessive computer usage, lack of motivation, not sleeping, etc). If I had a supportive home, where I felt comfortable talking to my mom about my issues, I am absolutely positive that I would not feel the need to use these coping mechanisms nearly as much as I do now. If I simply had her to talk to, our relationship would be a lot better. But her way of coping through things (she went through trauma too, after all) is to ignore it and block it out.

Basically – to be a good parent, GO TO THERAPY if you need to. Work out your issues before trying to teach another human being how to live. Both of my parents had abusive childhoods and never did anything to try and mend their lasting issues from it. Consequentially, it led to having children when they weren’t mentally ready, and both my sister and I have literally barely made through it alive. If you’re a parent and you have personal issues that prevent you from being the best you can be, find a therapist and work through it – there is no shame in it. I am 16 and have a one-year-old daughter, I am already on that road, doing CBT twice a week – I am positive that my daughter will grow up in a more stable household than I did, and that she won’t have to have the same experiences I did growing up. I am determined to be a good parent and going to therapy is the MOST important thing if that’s what you need! If you need it and you don’t go, making your child breakfast every morning means NOTHING!
And I can confidently say that if your child is rebelling against you, you are doing something wrong – fix yourself, don’t try to fix their behavior. It comes from you. You are the one teaching them how to live, and this is what they have learned. A happy child doesn’t suddenly decide to start using drugs or to swear at their parents. Really!